


don't be alarmed if I fall head over feet

by janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, ASoIaF Kink Meme, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, like seriously don't even look for angst here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-15 00:09:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>five times when various members of the Stark family had to re-evaluate their opinion of Robb's boyfriend and one when there wasn't the need.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't be alarmed if I fall head over feet

**Author's Note:**

> written for an asoiaf kink meme prompt - _in which various members of the family think Theon's just an asshole and don't understand why Robb is with him. And one by one they catch moments where Theon thinks he's alone with Robb and is actually being sweet/letting the douchey facade down._ The title is from Alanis Morissette, I don't own them (I wish), and to be honest the high school thing is more because of their ages rather than this being actually set in school, but.. details, right?

1\. Catelyn

 

To be fair, she had always suspected that it was going to happen. Well, not when both Robb and Theon were six and Theon used to sleep over in Robb’s room, but it’s been a couple of years since she started thinking that maybe _best friends_ didn’t exactly cover it.

Which is why she’s not surprised when Robb finds her one afternoon when no one else is in the house and blushes crimson when he tells her that he and Theon might have kissed and they might be in a relationship, and he looks as if he’ll be devastated if she doesn’t approve of it.”

Catelyn tells herself that fifteen is a perfectly appropriate age for dating and smiles and tells him that of course it’s fine, even if she’s not telling the whole truth. It’s not that she doesn’t _like_ Theon, he’s not a bad kid even if his brothers definitely are, and Catelyn has had enough of his father after one parents-teachers conference in junior high. (She attended them all, he only ever attended once and it was one too many.) It’s just that she really can’t see why Robb would date him, not when Theon at fifteen has already had at least seven girlfriends who all lasted one month at most, and she’s not sure that dating your best friend is a good idea in general. 

She just doesn’t want Robb to get his heart broken the first time he does this, but when he beams at her she figures that if this is what makes him happy, she’ll just pretend and keep her eyes open.

Not that for the next few weeks things change much whenever Theon drops by - they behave exactly the same way, maybe they touch just a bit more but not overtly, and she starts fearing that for Theon it might not be as serious as it is for Robb. Ned tells her the same one night, and she shrugs and tells him to wait and see.

Then it happens that Rickon catches a bad case of flu one month after Robb tells her. Robb volunteers to look after him one afternoon so that she can have tea at her sister’s, and the next day Robb is in bed with the exact same symptoms. Clearly Ned is out of town for a work conference and Catelyn is not going to risk another one of her children catching it, too (the last thing she needs is having all five of them sick). After half an afternoon of running herself sick between the two of them - at least Robb doesn’t cry out loud, but it’s obvious that he’s in pain, it’s the kind of flu that comes with bad headaches and she can hear him coughing from the other side of the hallway while she’s with Rickon - she isn’t sure that she can do this for the next three days or so, and then someone rings at the door.

She goes to answer and she blinks twice when she sees that it’s Theon in front of her.

“Theon? If you were her to see Robb, I’m afraid that -”

“I know, I know, he’s riding out his pain up there in his bed. He texted me this morning. And I figured I might take him off your hands.”

“What?” For a moment she doesn’t know what to say, and she honestly can’t ever see Theon doing a good job out of it. Then she decides that she has no business being picky, and however it is, Theon obviously cares about Robb enough that they’ve been attached to the hip for ten years. Still better than Robb being up there on his own. “Oh. Well, you know where everything is. Sure. He’s in his room.”

Theon goes to the kitchen saying that he’ll make some tea before going upstairs and she goes back to Rickon. When he finally falls asleep one hour later or so, she can’t help the curiosity - she goes to Robb’s room, noticing that the door is halfway open. She tries not to make noise and takes a glimpse inside.

And - oh. Theon is laying down on top of the covers while Robb is buried under them, but he has an arm around Robb’s waist and his other hand is keeping a wet piece of cloth on Robb’s forehead. Robb, meanwhile, is still drinking the tea she figures Theon had made earlier - he takes a sip from the mug and puts it down on his nightstand before leaning back against Theon.

“Feeling better?” Theon asks, and he sounds… almost concerned? The most concerned Catelyn has ever heard him, anyway.

Robb coughs shallowly but then gives him a small nod. “Thanks. Shit, my head is pounding - you mind turning down the lights?”

Theon reaches for the switch next to Robb’s nightstand and the room goes dark at once, but Catelyn doesn’t miss how carefully he tries not to drop the hand holding the cloth to Robb’s forehead.

When Ned calls her that evening, Theon is still upstairs - she brought them some dinner a while before and she knows that he’s going to stay the night. He says he’ll try to be back as soon as possible.

“That’s all right,” she says. “I think your firstborn is covered.”

“You mean -”

“Do you know what we were saying about his boyfriend this last week?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Because I really think we don’t have to worry about that.” She knows she’s right as she says it.

 

2\. Arya

 

The more time passes, the more she doesn’t get how Robb has been dating Theon for two months. It’s not like she ever minded her brother’s best friend, it’s just that he’s obnoxious, has a horrible sense of humor, she hates that he calls her _squirt_ and he drives her crazy half of the time. And she just doesn’t even get what Robb sees in him. Not to mention that he’s even more around since they started dating - who even _dates_ , it sounds so stupid - and she still doesn’t see the deal.

Then it happens that one day she’s the only one in the house, trying to catch up on ridiculous math homework, and Robb is supposed to be back from his extra drama class in half an hour or so - seriously, she doesn’t get why Robb would do _drama_ rather than soccer or anything remotely interesting, and then someone knocks at the door.

She goes to open it - it’s Theon. And he looks weird - he’s not smiling, for once, and there’s a red bruise on his face, as if someone had slapped him hard enough to leave a mark.

“Robb’s not here,” she says, because why else would he have come?

“I know,” he answers. “Do you mind if I wait for him inside?”

She’s tempted to say no just to get back at him, but he looks like someone who could really use a break right now. “Suit yourself,” she says, letting him in. He goes to sit on the sofa in the living room while she goes back to the table and her homework. She glances at him once in a while - he’s jittery, his fingers drumming against his thigh or running through his own hair, and after half an hour of it she’s about to tell him to just _stop_ before he drives her crazy. Then the door opens.

Robb comes inside saying something about having to rain just when the bus isn’t passing, and then he sees Theon. Arya can pinpoint the moment when his expression goes straight to concerned, and he doesn’t even look at her as he drops his bag to the ground and sits next to Theon. She grabs her things and walks out, figuring that it’s a _private moment_ or whatever Sansa calls this kind of thing, but the sofa is right under the staircase and she can’t help it - she looks down at the two of them when she’s at the top of it. 

They’re holding hands right now. And Robb has his free one on the back of Theon’s neck, and Theon is looking at him in a way that seems out of Sansa’s stupid romantic movies, and Arya still doesn’t get the deal, but it hits her like a punch to the gut - Robb’s stupid _boyfriend_ is madly and completely in love with her brother and there’s really no other way to put it. 

Ah well, she figures as she goes back to her room, it seems like Robb is, as well. She still doesn’t get it, but if it makes them happy, good for them.

 

3\. Jon

 

He never asked Robb outright, but one day he will understand why his brother actually likes his asshole best friend. Fine, as far as assholes go Theon isn’t the worst kind, but he’s still an ass with a horrible sense of humor and a serious thing for picking on him whenever he has the occasion and Jon doesn’t get the appeal at all.

He also wouldn’t have bet a penny on this whole dating business lasting three weeks, let alone six months, but it has and it’s just mind-boggling. Theon’s longest-lasting girlfriend was around for exactly one month, or so he gathered from school gossip, and he’s not sure that he can put _Theon_ and _commitment_ in the same sentence, except that apparently he was wrong and it looks like it’s going to last a while.

He still doesn’t get it, though.

Until one day he comes back home from soccer training and hears laughter coming from Robb’s room. And it’s Robb, no doubt. He walks up the stairs and towards Robb’s room - the door is still half-open and if he stays where he is they won’t see him. 

They also have scripts in their hands - right. Robb is always complaining that the guy who’s supposed to play _Waiting for Godot_ opposite him for the drama club at school is never available to rehearse their lines outside school hours, so he probably asked Theon to do that in his place.

“You know,” Robb says as he wipes tears from his eyes, “you totally should have applied. I mean, what is it, the second time you go through this? You’re already a lot better than bloody Joffrey Baratheon. I can’t even believe I have to do this with him, fuck my life.”

Jon expects Theon to joke about it and flip Robb off. “Yeah, and how well did it go the last time I said I was thinking about doing it?”

Robb’s eyes turn serious again and - oh god, now Jon feels like a creeper because the last thing he was expecting was hand-holding.

“You do know you’re better than what your brother thinks, don’t you?”

Theon shrugs and then grabs the script again with his free hand.

“Whatever. Where the hell were we? Right. _You wanted to speak to me? You had something to say to me_?”

Jon quietly goes back to his own room, except that he’s not fast enough not to notice that they’re also more or less trying to act it out. And if he remembers right from what he studied of that in literature class…

“I’ve nothing to say to you,” Robb says as he stands up and takes a step back.

“You’re angry?” Theon asks, taking a step forward. Well. Robb was right. He can act passably, or so it seems. “Forgive me,” he keeps on as he puts one hand on Robb’s shoulder and glances at the script. “Come, Didi. Give me your hand. Embrace me, don’t be stubborn!”

Jon could bet that in the original play it lasted a moment and then Estragon jerked back and said something about stinking of garlic - he always thought that it was kind of funny.

Those two clutch at each other instead, and both scripts fall to the ground.

Jon swallows, not knowing why he suddenly feels somewhat sad, and goes back to his room.

Then it happens that Joffrey Baratheon aka the supposed Estragon pulls out one week before the play is supposed to go on stage and Robb somewhat convinces Theon to go for it - they practiced it enough times that he already knows it by heart anyway, and then Jon goes to attend the one performance put on before Christmas break and - well. It probably was a good thing that Theon stepped in because those two have chemistry, however you want to put it, and fine, Theon _can_ act, and Jon doesn’t miss that while all the five actors are holding hands when they come out at the end, those two are doing it so hard that Theon’s knuckles are almost white. And after they go out on their own, Theon totally looks at Robb as he walks back to his place at the side, and - well, fine, all right, he has to come to terms with it. Theon Greyjoy is utterly and hopelessly and ridiculously in love with Jon’s brother. Thing is, Robb is looking back as if he’s so proud of him that he could burst.

Jon has a feeling he’ll be attending their wedding.

He doesn’t hate the prospect as much as he thought he would two months ago.

 

4\. Sansa

 

Out of all the things Sansa had expected to run into, this is the last.

 _This_ meaning Theon ringing the doorbell, looking half-flustered and asking her if she can tell Robb to come to the backyard.

Sansa does and she wonders what’s going on - it’s been a long while since those two started dating, and while Sansa thinks that Robb could have frankly done better than Theon Greyjoy and find himself someone who doesn’t think that watching the fifth _Die Hard_ is an acceptable definition of date… well, she figures he could have done worse. At least everyone knows that it’s not a fling, not when it’s been going on this long. She tells Robb that Theon wants to see him in the backyard and Robb goes at once, and Sansa - well, she knows she shouldn’t pry, but she’s curious now. Also because she’s never seen Theon being _flustered_.

So she goes to Rickon’s room, whose window conveniently faces the backyard. She’s not worried about them noticing - they’re usually so engrossed in each other that they wouldn’t hear it if someone started playing heavy metal right next to them, anyway.

“Hey,” Robb says as he walks out in the yard. “What’s going on?”

Theon looks at him for a moment, then swallows and looks down at a paper bag he had placed on the ground. Sansa is sure she’s never seen him look this embarrassed.

“It’s just - uh - you remember which day is it, right?”

“The sixth of June? I’d think that - oh.” Robb’s eyes go wide and Sansa doesn’t get what is so special about it. But obviously something is, since Robb has apparently understood it.

“It’s just - I never got this far with anyone else and I have no fucking clue of what I’m doing, but - here you go.” Theon takes something out of the bag - an envelope, or so it seems. Robb opens it and when he looks at what’s inside - seems like tickets for some concert - it his lips curl up in the widest grin Sansa has ever seen on his face.

“ _Waiting for Godot_? Really?”

“I - I thought it was appropriate? And - uh. Er. This.”

The last thing Sansa had expected him to do was pulling out of the bag a small bunch of flowers, which was obviously bought somewhere but also a bit battered from being put inside the bag. Nice flowers, too. All white and blue.

“Happy anniversary?” Theon asks shakily as he hands it over, and god but Sansa has to stop herself from cooing out loud when Robb takes it without blinking, looks at it as if it’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever given him and proceeds to kiss Theon senseless. Not that he gives him respite - when they part he starts raining kisses all over his face while he says that he totally did this right, and Sansa has to take back everything she thought before. She’s starting to realize what Robb might see in Theon, but other than that, she thinks that this was the singular most romantic thing she’s ever seen in her life and - right, maybe they’re just good for each other, aren’t they? She goes back to her own room and leaves them to being ridiculously adorable.

She can’t wait for the wedding, truth to be told.

 

5\. Edmure

 

“One year and a half? Seriously?”

His sister looks at him as if she’s kind of amused and pours him a cup of tea.

“Who’d have thought,” she agrees. “But yes, seriously. And - I think it’s a good thing.”

“Good thing? With _him_?”

“It doesn’t look like it,” Catelyn agrees. “I thought the same at the beginning. But they’re good for each other. They really are.”

Edmure isn’t entirely convinced - he usually manages to visit his sister four or five times each year, what with living in another country and all, but he remembers enough of his nephew’s best friend to be sure that he didn’t look like dating material. Or dating-for-more-than-two-months material. He drinks his tea and goes back up to the guest room, figuring that he’ll take a shower before dinner, and as he takes off his shirt he hears conversation coming from Robb’s room. Which is exactly next to his. 

“You can’t be serious,” Robb says, but he sounds almost pained.

“What else do I do?” That has to be Theon. And he sounds exactly the same. “My sister is the only one who’s trying to convince them that they should just let me do whatever the hell I want, but it’s one against three. I don’t want to, and you know that.”

“That’s bullshit. You know you can get in with a scolarship, right?”

“Yes, that’s covered, and do I live on the street meanwhile? He’s said it - either I go work for him or he throws me out.”

“You’re such an idiot. You already live here half of the time or did you forget it?”

At this point Edmure can’t help it - curiosity gets the best of him. Also, there’s a door connecting Robb’s room to the one he’s sleeping in. He kneels down and looks through the keyhole - right. Robb’s sitting on the bed, Theon Greyjoy next to him, and from what he sees Greyjoy is looking at him as if Robb just told him something completely insane.

“What?”

“Stay here for a while and then maybe we can get an apartment together or something like that. Why not? You don’t need your dad to ruin your life, you know. If you want to act instead of doing what he wants, then you should.”

“… You’re serious.”

“You deserve better than that and don’t ever try to tell me differently, all right?”

So Edmure has no clue whatsoever of what is this about, but he wasn’t expecting Greyjoy to throw his arms around Robb and grab him tight enough to hurt, or Robb to start kissing the top of his head, and maybe his nephew’s best friend didn’t seem like dating material but from what he sees, this is serious.

He also figures that he’ll see a lot more of Robb’s _boyfriend_ around whenever he’s here, but it looks like he was wrong. He might not be dating material, but he looks like Robb’s dating material enough, so he supposes that is sister was right after all.

 

6\. Rickon

 

“Are you and my brother married?”

Rickon hadn’t exactly expected Theon to blush furiously as he startles at the question.

“What?”

“Are you?” Rickon just wants an answer, how dense can he get?

“Uh, no? Why would you even ask me that? We’re eighteen, squirt. That’s kind of too early.”

“Too bad. You should ask him, you know?”

“Excuse me?”

“You should. He’d say yes. And don’t say that I’m too young to get this - I’m eight, not two.”

Theon is still blushing furiously, which is not a look that Rickon has ever seen on him. It just seems weird.

“He’d say yes,” he repeats, sounding stunned.

Rickon knows better than to think that Theon is a complete idiot, he knows he’s not, but at times like this he can’t help thinking that he comes close to it.

“Why are you that surprised? ‘Course he would.” Seriously, whenever Robb even answers one of Theon’s texts he transforms into something out of some of those stupid cartoons his friends like, where people’s eyes suddenly turn into hearts or equally horrible stuff. And it’s been like that since Rickon can even remember, doubting that Robb might say yes isn’t even a thing that should exist.

“And what would you think about that?” Theon asks, sounding slightly amused now. Though he’s still obviously not wrapping his head around it.

“Nothing. I asked that because I thought you already were.”

“For real?”

“For real.”

“He’d say yes.”

“Before you finished asking the question. Positive.”

“And why should I ask him, according to you?”

Rickon rolls his eyes. Dense. So dense. “You might as well. You already look like you are.”

“Yeah, and then all of you would go all ‘don’t ever try to break his heart’ at me, wouldn’t you?”

Rickon shrugs. “Not me. You wouldn’t, you’re too whipped for that.”

Theon opens his mouth and closes it without ever coming up with a reply. Rickon smirks, and then Robb comes back with their french fries and sits down at the table next to Theon.

“They’re going to bring the hamburgers in a moment. What’s going on here?”

“Nothing,” Theon says, and then they look at each other and seriously, it’s just so obvious that they’d kill themselves before one of them _broke the other’s heart_ or whatever it was that Theon said before.

Then Robb totally takes Theon’s hand in plain sight and Rickon has to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

At this point he should just tell Robb then - maybe he’d be a bit more receptive. Whatever. They’re totally married already, and as far as he’s concerned there isn’t a reason why it wouldn’t be a good thing.

End.


End file.
